Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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The Great Pretender
Jacob had a pattern.
Everywhere he went and every situation he was in he was working a hustle to get what he felt he needed or deserved or just wanted.
He was clever.
He was bold.
But you couldn’t say that he was wise.
At one point he ended up with the father-in-law he deserved.
They both hustled each other.
Jacob ended up with two wives when he only wanted one but he also got the better of a cattle breeding deal.
It’s best not to deal with people who can’t be straightforward.
If they always operate in a way that says: oops and the oops is always in their favor you’re dealing with someone like Jacob.
If you keep going down that line they will bleed you dry.
This kind of person looks for people they can take advantage of when necessary.
There’s no reason to keep being that person.
If you keep falling for the same thing over and over expecting a different result how likely is that really?
The best thing you can do for a manipulator is to call them on it.
Don’t enable them.
What usually happens with this kind of person is exactly what happened to Jacob.
Eventually people figure it out and drop them.
Ultimately they have nowhere to turn.
They try intimidation to keep a good thing going.
How dare you?
Gas lighting you into feeling bad for discovering their pattern.
They almost never apologize and only when they have no other option to gain your sympathy.
But once someone sees through them they move on.
Until there’s nowhere else left to run.
Jacob had cheated his own brother out of his inheritance in a weak moment.
He probably knew that one day he would have to answer for this.
But in between he was the great pretender.
The deceiver.
A manipulator extraordinaire.
The Not Quite Final Showdown
When Jacob had nowhere left to go but had finally accumulated a lot for himself by manipulation, he decided to go home.
He decided it was time to face his brother.
He was still in manipulation mode.
He sent a messenger saying he had stuff he could give to Esau if he found favor in his eyes.
He anxiously awaited word.
The messengers returned rather urgently.
He probably worried as they approached so swiftly.
Four hundred men! That’s an army!
Did he finally admit the issue?
No. Did he send his family away so they would not be harmed for his double-crossing?
Ha! No.
He used them as human shields.
If he attacks one group the other may escape.
Guess who would be in the other, lol.
So he went as far as he could by nightfall.
He sent the family across the ford in the Jabbok stream.
In the morning it would all be over.
He would spend his last night alone.
Or so he thought...
Wrestlemania
Ever have a restless night?
Mind going a million miles an hour?
Body uncomfortable?
This was not just a long day at work or some rough words with family keeping him up.
Jacob’s whole life was crashing down around him.
Jacob was going to have to face reality.
Maybe for the first time in his entire life.
As if this wasn’t enough a man showed up out of nowhere and they began to wrestle...
Man/Angel/God
As the wrestling continued Jacob tried every move and he knew every move.
In modern college wrestling it’s called an escape when you break loose from the grip of your adversary.
Countless times Jacob had wiggled out and gotten himself free and taken what he wanted.
But tonight there was no wiggling free.
They wrestled on.
Jacob couldn’t get free but he didn’t stop squirming either.
He persisted in wrestling against the will of the man.
But was this adversary just a man?
We are talking hours.
How did this go on?
What sort of thoughts were going through Jacob’s mind?
Maybe when you are up against a physical challenge that takes all you’ve got, you don’t have time or energy to keep lying to yourself.
Maybe Jacob was wrestling with himself.
Realizing this is it!
Cue the Kenny Loggins song.
I can’t keep playing games.
It’s now or never.
Do I really want to play these games well into old age?
But he is also wrestling with his own fears?
He knows God has been there for him time and again, but he has just used God to get out of trouble then gone back to his ways.
This time if anything good was going to happen God would have to be on the scene.
He was no match for an angry brother, 400 men and a lifetime of malice building up.
If God has always been with him maybe God is with him right now.
Right here.
Even in this endless wrestling match of the ages.
Was this man an angel?
A divine agent?
Something like that.
And even the divine one realizes this guy isn’t going to give up.
The Touch
At daybreak he knew it was time to change the game.
He reached out and touched the socket of Jacob’s hip.
Pain is the only thing that will eventually stop a manipulator.
If Jacob was just out to escape this would be when he stopped.
The one who touched his hip was wanting to break free.
But Jacob has wrestled enough to break through his self-serving ways.
Now he wants something more.
Something only God can truly give him.
He needs God’s blessing on his life.
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